A Point of Sale (POS) is often referred to as a location where a retail transaction is conducted. For example, it may be the point where a customer makes a payment to a retailer in exchange for goods or services. Further, the retailer may, at the POS, calculate an amount owed by the customer and provide options for the customer to make payment. A payment may be made by, for example, cash, a credit card, a debit card, or check. The retailer may issue a receipt to the customer for the transaction.
A Point of Commerce (POC) may broadly refer to shopping or retail transactions conducted within a “brick and mortar” retail store or at any location by use of a computing device that is suitably connected to a communications network. As an example, a customer may shop within a store and proceed to a checkout station to purchase one or more products obtained in the store. In another example, a customer may use his or her mobile computing device to shop for products at a retail website via a web browser. In this example, the customer may select products for purchase and subsequently conduct a purchase transaction with the mobile computing device.
Regardless of whether a given transaction is a POS transaction, or a POC transaction, however, such transactions are typically processed by application programs executing on network servers.